EP30:How much money can you make raising broilers on your Homestead?

In this episode, we go over 10 weeks worth of data on raising Cornish X chickens for meat production. I detail all the expenses, loss, and potential profit for selling these birds to local customers.
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[@whitetrashgarage8110]

Earned a subscriber. I can barely keep our freezer full of game meat from what I harvest through the fall (Venison and waterfowl) and supplementing through the year with grocery store protein, but now with the supply chain breaking down, I think it's time to go 100% self sufficient for our meat.

[@RedToolHouse]

It is a good time to try that!

[@TERRORoftheLORD]

I like the fact that you wore your Polyface Farm shirt to make this video. Joel Salitin literally wrote the book on this. Nice job adapting his methods!

[@RedToolHouse]

Yes, his farm is incredible. We have to buy shirts each time we go.

[@clambert2020]

Great video. Smooth delivery, no useless banter, good info. Thanks.

[@RedToolHouse]

Thanks for watching.

[@mtkwilx]

Great video, as a fellow pasture based farmer I would like to encourage you to keep tract of all of your time involved in feeding, moving, slathering packaging ect. Afterwards pay yourself a $10 hr for all time involved and see where your profibility lands. Chickens for meat are hands down the most labor intensive product that we supply and we processed over a 1000 birds in 2017 already..

[@RedToolHouse]

Yes, I have been tracking my time to move and feed. I move the tractor daily in the am while feeding hogs and tending to the egg laying flock. I have about 5 minutes per day in one tractor, so 5 minutes a day for 6 weeks is 3.5 hours. At $10 per hour, that is $35. 25 chickens in that tractor makes that $1.40 per bird in labor costs. How does your labor stack up per bird with over 1000 broilers?

[@RedToolHouse]

Curious to know the state you are in and are you using exemptions to process that many birds or are you fully inspected?

[@mtkwilx]

We are in florida, our feed cost is considerably higher being that there is very little non gmo grain farmers in the south. We are family operated with just 3 adults and 1 teenager and operate under an exemption. We slaughter 150-200 bird a month on slaughter days are 8-10 hrs long with 4 people working. That's 40 man hrs ÷200 birds = $2 a bird. We package 3 days later after letting the birds ice down. That's another 6 hrs with 3 people = 18 man hrs and a package labor cost of $.90 per bird. We have learned many things the hard way, and yes we are doing all the labor now. However, we now take into account of what would it cost us if we had to pay someone else to do this task. To work and not get paid sums up to one of two things, volunteers or slaves. I don't want to be either.

[@RedToolHouse]

Excellent info. I wish you were closer, I would love to see your operation.

[@badbadnotgoodgoodgodnotbad2930]

What's the least labor intensive and most profitable

[@dazie1245]

Thank you for the legal info. Your the first one I've heard talk of it. Any time you want to talk more on how to and what are the legalitys bases it would be very helpful.

[@christinascleaning]

A few months ago I found y'alls channel and loved it and didn't subscribe so I have been looking and looking because I couldn't remember the name! LOL well I'm a subscriber today I pray God Blesses yall abundantly this year :D ~Christina from north GA

[@RedToolHouse]

thanks! Glad you found us again.

[@jksatte]

Very detailed thank you for sharing. Janice

[@juanitadafler7233]

Very good video and mentioned about everything someone needs to know about raising your own chickens for your family and for profit!

[@muharremcamci1936]

This is the best video since we dont eat pork here in saudi Arabia. I liked the cost and profit calculations.

[@RedToolHouse]

I understand why you all don't eat pork in Saudi, but you are missing out on some tasty bacon!

[@lisakukla459]

This is exactly what I was looking for. I really appreciate the breakdown of the numbers in these type of videos. I'm going to call around and find out cost for processors in my area, mobile and stationary. Even if I had all the equipment on hand, I doubt I would be physically able to do the processing myself, so I'm very curious to know what it costs with processors factored in. Especially since Aldi is now selling organic and humanely raised & processed whole chickens for $2.49/lb. If that product is what it claims to be (all I know for sure is that they taste good), my wallet and my back may decide its not the best option for me.

[@mascatrails661]

Have you seen those diy chicken pluckers that use a PVC end cap and attach to a drill? At your scale, this seems like a nice step up. There's many videos about it; it costs around $30; from what I've gathered it doesn't save you much time, but does save on the repetitive motion.

[@vonRow]

We skin our birds out as well. It's simply faster than setting up and using the plucker., which we only run if our customer/s request a 'skin-on' bird. To speed skinning, we use a pruning shear to lop the wings at the last joint. A few slits at the legs, and a good grip and the carcass pulls right out. We prefer to completely butcher out our own birds; legs/thighs, boneless breasts and wings, and 'giblets.' (o.m.g. giblet gravy!!!) Everything is set into small groups and packed into the freezer. We found doing it that way takes up far far less space in the freezers and in the cooking pots/pans. However, if our customers request it, we will leave the bird 'whole.'

[@RedToolHouse]

another human excellent! How many do you normally butcher at a time?

[@mrgearheadfromhell]

Variety is the spice of life, while my plans include a wide range of products most of them are not in place just yet. I mainly wanted to raise my own food and didn't want to eat the same thing every day, so I started looking at other types of livestock. I'm trying to set everything up to process my own livestock, my plan includes a block constructed building with a refrigeration unit from a truck ( Thermo King ) preferably one that can be run by diesel or electric. The building will be big enough to handle the beef because I can always use it for smaller animals, plus I want to age the beef; So it will need to hang for probably two weeks prior to being cut up. This will also provide a area that will house the processing equipment, while this may seem like a lot and I know it is; The building could also be used to process deer so I could offer that service to local hunters. I will also be building a rather large smoke house, as part of my goal is to process the meat in a manner that doesn't require refrigeration for storage.

[@RedToolHouse]

Processing could be a lucrative business. Check your state/government regulations. They are very strict in our state. That is why I have to outsource all of my processing since I sell some of it. Sounds like a great setup plan!

[@alfteck]

It's amazing any of them can walk.

[@800oaksfarmandranch6]

Are you going to do a video on processing / skinning the birds? Also I was wondering if you ever talk about how you developed a customer base when you were first starting out? How did you initially go about selling your products?

[@RedToolHouse]

Ryan Hill yes, we will be processing the remainder of our red rangers in a couple weeks. I plan on detailing that in a video. As for building a customer base, I have been toying with doing an online course about marketing farm products and developing customer relationships. It would utilize my marketing experience with my day job.

[@800oaksfarmandranch6]

Thanks Troy! I'll be on the lookout for both! Love your videos, keep up the good work.

[@RedToolHouse]

Ryan Hill thanks!

[@patricklawson7533]

I understand KZbin objects to any videos that show slaughtering of any animals, including chicken. I would pay for an on line course on marketing.

[@RedToolHouse]

We are developing something for marketing training. It is a very broad topic so we will try to condense it to something manageable.

[@michaelrodriguez5009]

Your videos are so good that I let the adds play in hopes that they pay you more money...

[@RedToolHouse]

Thanks! I appreciate your support.

[@cassityart7001]

Questions: Are we stuck buying bag feed for meat birds? Can our homesteads create a nutritional option that might be sustainable for a fraction of the price of bag feed? Growing natural plants that contain the minerals and vitamins required and insects like black fly larva for protein? Can we grow our own chicks and provide those chicks for other small local farms available for pickup? Most homesteaders don’t think outside the “this is how you do it” box. I think we should. A closed loop may include other local family farms. Just some thoughts to wrap our winter brain around. Thanks. 🙂

[@RedToolHouse]

I think it is very doable but it all depends on scale. If you are raising birds just for your family to consume, then I think you could totally do away with commercial feed. We are even experimenting with comfry as the main protein source for some feeds and eliminating soy. Unfortunately, scaling up makes this much more difficult.

[@cassityart7001]

Red Tool House - Homestead : Hi Guys: Just some ideas to ponder about zeroing out expensive bagged feed. I know we are talking about meat birds but this is an example of a large population. How Karl Hammer Feeds 600 Chickens (Without Grains) kzbin.info/www/bejne/f4immXtvgq2efsk

[@lukeryuzaki2328]

@@cassityart7001 I'm sorry, but you seem to mistake lot of thing here because you're trying to run before you walk properly. Composting that much is an entire different business altogether and would require different permit for farm operation. It's not really pastured raised chicken any more when it's now compost raised. Composting the right way is no issue to the health of the chicken and later chicken meat consumption, but it is very difficult to sell. You would need supply of food scrap, and carbon. Sorting food scrap is important to ensure successful compost. You don't want to bring home bad chemical dipped food scrap and stat your compost. Defeat the whole point of regenerative approach. Even free food scrap it would cost transportation whether you collect in bulk at one site, or collect littler by little all over towns. Tractor and equipment, intensive labor required to turn those big compost pile during earlier stage before it's livestock safe. Growing feed again is an entire business in itself. Even on a good soil with all these natural fertilizer, you still need to look at thing like weather, season, weeding, watering, sunlight amount/which crop is suitable/ best spot to plant, harvesting, storage, milling... Did you consider drought, flood, storm, grain storage spoilage? If you end up with one of these situation, where do you get your money from to purchase commercial feed? I meant you work full time with both livestock, crop growing, harvesting, processing... Time, and labor is money. Highly unlikely for a homestead with handful of people or less to be able to do it all in an productive, cost and labor efficient way to have everything on the farm.

[@lukeryuzaki2328]

@@cassityart7001 Plants take nutrient from the soil. Healthy soil doesn't mean that soil is suitable for all kind of plants/crops. So if you want to grow certain crop, you would need to make sure your soil has the mineral for it. Else you would have to pay to supplement the soil with those the required minerals. Not all protein is the same. I know somebody in Japan that experimented raising chicken solely on black solider fly larvae, and the whole chicken flock suffered watery waste and sudden death due to malnutrition. The same lineage/ family of those same chicken flock, didn't have issue on other diet. So proceed with care.

[@lukeryuzaki2328]

@@cassityart7001 Hatching egg. Maintaining breeding stock is a different ball game too. Seriously. If you're good with hatching and raising breeders, you may as well make it your main business. Remember, broiler and layer can require different nutrition, feeding regime. So do breeders. It's possible to maintain some breeders on a small scale while focus on pastured raised broiler, layer, pig... However, to be productive on a larger scale with breeding and hatching, it's a full time job.

[@alexanderpitman9433]

If you are comfortable with skinning and dressing chickens, have you considered raising meat rabbits? Fur skins being a side profit to consider when selecting breeds. Note that Angola Rabbits are a primarily wool producing breed.

[@RedToolHouse]

I love the taste of rabbit and want to add it but the wife and the boys have drawn the line there. They are suckers for something furry. It would be like me eating their cats (which isn't completely out of the realm of possibility if times get tough)

[@michaelripperger5674]

Watch next on Red Tool House - Southeast Asia version

[@villagesteader3552]

Alexander Pitman Angora

[@poodledaddles1091]

great video

[@tom-mo-]

Check out Welp Hatchery. I get mine starting at $1.95 per chick for (Cornish cross straight run) including shipping. My bird are averaging about 6lbs dressed weight at 8 weeks with very low lost rate or health problems. Birds taste great and are very tender.

[@RedToolHouse]

Just switch to Duncans Poultry. They have great prices as well as free shipping. I like using the smaller businesses.

[@robertfridley280]

How do we get them out there in the public? Ready to sell from the freezer.

[@mariayelruh]

The cost will actually be less when the other birds are processed because they ate that grain also.

[@RedToolHouse]

Maria Hurley yes, that is factored in but they are still eating grain so I think they will be more expensive once we butcher them

[@harlocondo7643]

Just came across your channel. Very interesting. Pigs are more profitable you say. How many porkers do you harvest a year? Do you feed the chicken guts and such to your pigs?

[@RedToolHouse]

Harlo Condo I usually do 30 or less. I do feed my chicken processing extras to the pigs but that accounts for a day or two of protein during their 7 month life cycle

[@nancybattle5625]

Why do you select Roosters for meat chickens....or does it matter ? Nancy

[@RedToolHouse]

Roosters grow larger in the same amount of time as the hens. For meat birds, you get better yield for your feed investment.

[@patience1226]

Great video! When you culled the chickens, did you use them as food for the table or did you discard them as compost?(just trying to learn the best method...)

[@jksatte]

There is no way he discarded them. No way. Janice

[@patience1226]

He emailed me a reply, " Red Tool House - Homestead replied to Beverly Oregon's comment Red Tool House - Homestead Beverly Oregon they were too small to process so they were used as additional protein for our piglets."....

[@RedToolHouse]

Not sure why my first response was private to Beverly only. You are correct, Janice! Nothing goes to waste here. If I don't eat good protein raised on this farm then the pigs or the dog will get it.

[@Tony-qw6gw]

Check out Amazon for a plucker I do 200 plus Birds a year I have for the Last 5 Years it's under $450 for the plucker

[@tonyzimmerman5959]

Any sign of critters trying to get under the chicken tractor?

[@RedToolHouse]

No. No sign at all. I have trapped multiple raccoon and possum within that time frame at my egg layers, but nothing has tried to get under the tractor. It has some decent weight to it.

[@shadowbfarms9667]

Have I missed the May drawing?

[@RedToolHouse]

Shadow B Farms I will be announcing it this Friday. I am a week behind on the drawing and announcing June's prize.

[@toddcaskey9984]

Nice hat

[@RedToolHouse]

Todd Caskey I hate to get it dirty doing farm chores.

[@crayrat1]

So you sell the slaughtered packaged chickens???

[@RedToolHouse]

C.Ray Ratliff ll yes, we did a very small test run this year. We will produce more next spring. Still looking for processing equipment.

[@MrSer1962]

Do you capon your meat bird roosters?

[@RedToolHouse]

MrSer1962 no. We leave them intact.

[@thomasjeffrey6750]

KZbin is not showing 27 28 and 29 to me.

[@RedToolHouse]

Not sure where those are. KZbin doesn’t like the numbering so I had to stop around 50 or so. Be warned there are over 600 videos! Appreciate you watching!

[@exoscrewdriver4213]

So it’s cheaper to buy chicken at the grocery store then

[@RedToolHouse]

Sure. If you don't mind garbage chicken! :)

[@HERBALNATUMAN1]

How big is your farm?

[@RedToolHouse]

Leandro Zuniga our land is 100 acres but we are currently using only about 10 for the homestead.

[@raypflomm6020]

Are you managing the remaining 90 acres, of presumably timber, for potential income?

[@Mrplace001]

It is kinda hard to understand why you grew your Cornish X to 10 weeks and only ended up with a 4.5lb processed bird. You may have gotten an inferior strain of Cornish. We use to price shop our Cornish and found they didn't all grow out the same. You should be growing out and processing at 45 days to 60 max and have close to a 10 lb live weight bird. Anything more than six weeks and Cornish is not very cost effective. We do feed a little higher protein, at about 24% for 12 hours a day. It takes us right at 22lbs of feed to grow a Cornish to a 6.5lb processed weight bird in 60 days. We average about a 15% mortality, and that is all figured back into our bird cost as if we grew it out, and my average cost per bird is about $8.13 a bird with feed being $26cwt and $1.50 per chick at 100 chicks. That $8 per bird does not include any depreciation.

[@RedToolHouse]

Mrplace001 our chickens were skinned and wings removed so that did eliminate a decent amount of weight. We did ration feed as we were concerned with growth issues from a previous effort. Thanks for sharing! This is great data.

[@harlocondo7643]

Where do you buy your Cornish X for $1.50/bird?

[@RedToolHouse]

Harlo Condo I get them from Murray Mcmurray. When you buy in bulk you can get the price cheaper

[@robertcharles4713]

I love your videos BUT I can't grasp the idea of going off grid and still making the hustle and bustle of average life the leader of life. I get what your doing don't miss understand. The country life is suppose to be simple and you still micro manage every little detail. Have you ever tried just winggin it. Do what you do make what you can and just relax I still love you though even though you can make chickens complicated wufff. Keep it coming

[@jshoffner67]

Could not watch the video for him smacking his lips every 45 seconds

[@RedToolHouse]

I have had lip-o-suction since then so it is not nearly as bad.

[@hsap2000]

too wordy...

[@RedToolHouse]

hsap2000 I tried expressing my findings through interpretive dance but I kept tripping in my muck boots. Thanks for watching!